The use of high speed cutting tools such as rotary burrs and oscillating saws significantly reduces operating time and surgeon labor in orthopedic surgical procedures. Such power tools enable significantly faster cutting of bone during a surgical procedure, but when they are used manually, the accuracy of the cutting may not always be satisfactory.
Recently, surgical robots have become available which can control the power cutting tools used in orthopedic surgical procedures so as to provide superior accuracy in cutting bone. With orthopedic surgical robots, the key factor in determining the safety, accuracy and efficiency of the cutting performed by the orthopedic surgical robot is control of the toolpath during the surgical procedure.
With the Robodoc® surgical assistant system (Curexo Technology Corp., Fremont, Calif., USA), the surgical robot is equipped with a high speed rotating burr. A predefined cut path, selected for a specific implant, is loaded into the surgical robot, and the system then automatically cuts bone according to the pre-defined cut path, i.e., the surgical robot automatically cuts bone to the programmed positions.
With the TGS™ surgical robot system (Mako Surgical Corp., Fort Lauderdale, Fla., USA), the surgical robot is equipped with a high speed rotating burr. A predefined cut volume, selected for a specific implant, is loaded into the surgical robot. Then, while the surgical robot limits the location of the burr to within the predefined cut volume, the surgeon manually moves the burr into the bone so as to cut the bone out to the limit of the programmed positions.
The purpose of the present invention is to improve on the foregoing approaches, by providing a novel method and apparatus for determining and guiding the toolpath of an orthopedic surgical robot so as to enhance the safety, accuracy and efficiency of the cutting.